Congratulations to UBC Asian Studies professors, Dr. Leo Shin and Dr. Colleen Laird, who have been awarded a Public Humanities Faculty Fellowship for 2021-2022! The fellowships are awarded annually to support research excellence among humanities scholars in the Faculties of Arts, Law, and Education at UBC and to develop and highlight public-facing research in the humanities.
Leo Shin (Associate Professor of Asian Studies and History as well as the Convenor of the Hong Kong Studies Initiative at the University of British Columbia)
“Documenting the Hong Kong Protests”
All eyes are now on Hong Kong. Since the fall of 2014, when the so-called Umbrella Movement once again brought the former British colony to the world’s attention, the city of 7.5 million has undergone transformations that could—even to those less inclined to be dramatic—be described as precipitous. While academics and non-academics alike will continue to debate about the sources as well as impacts of the changes that are taking place in Hong Kong, what is clear is the imperative to document such transformations. The project I am undertaking is relatively modest. With the help of a student research assistant, I will produce and curate an annotated catalog of a range of Hong Kong protests-related documentaries, podcasts, and multimedia journalism that are available in English. My goal is to create a publicly accessible archive that could be used for research and teaching by colleagues and students all over the world.
Colleen Laird (Assistant Professor of Asian Studies)
“OER Video Series on Japanese Women Directors”
The proposed project, to develop a series of Open Education Resource videos on Japanese women film directors, is intentionally linked to the timed progress of my book project, Sea Change: Japan’s New Wave of Women Film Directors. In this public facing endeavor, I connect my own work to a larger movement of emergent scholarship with the aim of informing a new public perception and understanding of Japanese cinema. Drawing on my experience in the past three months producing OER videos on Japanese Horror films for higher-ed classrooms as digital alternatives to traditional lectures, the proposed series will feature interviews with scholars working on Japanese women directors, relevant film summaries and trailers, integrated stills and film clips, and educational “wrappers” that offer suggestions for further reading, further viewing, and classroom discussion questions. All videos will be captioned in English and Japanese, and hosted online under a Creative Commons license for viewing by general audiences.
About the Public Humanities Faculty Fellowships
The Public Humanities Faculty Fellowships are announced by the Public Humanities Hub (PHH) at UBC-Vancouver. The fellowships are awarded annually to support research excellence among humanities scholars in the Faculties of Arts, Law, and Education at UBC and to develop and highlight public-facing research in the humanities.
To see the complete list of 2021-2022 Public Humanities Faculty Fellows, visit the Public Humanities Hub website.
